1. Field of the Invention
The field of art to which this invention relates is personal or head mounted displays. It is more particularly directed to head mounted displays which utilize reflection type light valves. Such head mounted displays are of interest in a wide range of applications, including games, engineering, medicine, science, entertainment, and computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Present head mounted displays employ light valves (spatial light modulators or SLM's) consisting of transparent liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. Head mounted displays of this type are characterized by their high weight, low resolution, and high cost.
A new type of reflective LCD panel is being developed having potential for much higher resolution. However, these new LCD panels are constructed on a silicon substrate in order to take advantage of known silicon technology in which the liquid crystal material sits on an array of mirrors, one mirror to each pixel in the LCD. These new reflective LCD panels are characterized by their low weight, high resolution and low cost. Accordingly, it is desirable to employ these new reflective light valves in a head mounted display.